Her face darkened. She took her elbow from the mantelpiece, and seemed uncertain what to do. Blair sprang to open the door, but she made an irritated gesture. "I know how to open doors," she said. She threw a brief "good-night" to Elizabeth, and turned a cheek to Nannie for the kiss that had fallen there, soft as a little feather, in all the nights of all the years they had lived together. "'Night, Blair," she said shortly; then hesitated, her hand on the door-knob. There was an instant when the command _"Go to church!"_ trembled upon her lips, but it was not spoken. "I advise you," she said roughly, "to get over your conceit, and try to get some religion into you. Your father and your grandfather didn't think they could get along without it; they went to church! But you evidently think you are so much better than they were that you can stay away." The door slammed behind her. Blair whistled. "Poor dear mother!" he sighed; and turned round to listen to the two girls. "Can you be ready to start on the first?" Elizabeth was asking Nannie, evidently trying to cover up the awkwardness of that angry exit. "Start where?" Blair asked. "Why, East! You know. I told you ages ago," Nannie explained. "Elizabeth and I are going to stay with Mrs. Richie at the seashore." "You never said a word about it," Blair said disgustedly. His annoyance knew no disguise. "I call it pretty shabby for you two to go off! What's going to happen to me?" "Business, Blair, business!" Elizabeth mocked. But Nannie was plainly conscience-stricken. "I'll not go, if you'd rather I didn't, Blair." "Nonsense!" her brother said shortly, "of course you must go, but--" He did not finish his thought, whatever it was; he went back to the piano and began to drum idly. His face was sharply annoyed. That definition of his god which he had made to his mother, had aroused a nameless uneasiness. It occurred to him that perhaps he was "picking a pocket," in finding such emphatic satisfaction in Elizabeth's society. Now, abruptly, at the news of her approaching absence, the uneasiness sharpened into faintly recognizable outlines. He struck a jarring chord on the piano, and told himself not to be a fool. "She's mighty good fun. Of course I shall miss her or any other girl, in this Godforsaken hole! That's all it amounts to. Anyhow, she's dead in love with David." Sitting there in the hot dusk, listening to the voices of the girls, Blair felt suddenly irritated with David. "Darn him, why does he go off and leave her in this way? Not but what it is all right so far as I am concerned; only--" Then, wordlessly, his god must have accused him, for he winced. "I am _not_, not in the least!" he said. The denial confessed him to himself, and there was an angry bang of discordant octaves. The two girls called out in dismay.